The
USB port is one of the most ubiquitous computing interfaces ever
designed. The port in its various sizes and guises is found on all
manner of computers, game consoles, TVs, cable boxes, cameras, and
more. The number of uses for USB is simply staggering.

A
company called Infinitec has
announced a new Infinite
USB Memory Device or IUM. The company describes the IUM as
the next generation of USB flash drives. The drive promises media
streaming capability and claims to remove worry about how much space
is left for storage and removing data before you add new data to the
drive.

The IUM allows the user to share an entire HDD along
with servers, external storage, and any other storage that your
notebook has access to. That effectively means you will never run out
of storage space, as long as your PC has space anyway. How much data
from the drive is shared can be determined at the file level allowing
the sharing of an entire drive or a single image on that drive.

IUM
supports all file formats and if lost or stolen none of the files go
with the drive because it relies on storage in other locations for
actually storing the files. Infinitec also claims that the drive can
stream media from a laptop to any device with a USB port including
TVs, DVD players, game consoles and more. The IUM is specifically
said to support the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360.

To operate, the
IUM has to be paired with a computer and can only be paired to a
single computer. This allows multiple IUMs to be used in a location
without interference. The downside to the IUM is that since the
device uses your laptop or desktop HDD for storage you will need to
have the computer with you on the road to access files. One
interesting use for the device is to send the digital photos from
your PC to a digital photo frame.